


find shelter somewhere in me

by singmyheart



Category: Freestyle Love Supreme, Hamilton - Miranda (Broadway Cast) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Teachers, First Time, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, why is that a tag, y'know the usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-28 23:21:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10841580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singmyheart/pseuds/singmyheart
Summary: “Don’t fuck him,” had been Anthony's exact words, when Daveed had first shown up and Rafa asked about him (innocently enough, he’d thought).(That was the thing, about teaching high school, the fucking gossiping. He assured every class of anxious, overwrought kids til he was blue in the face that this place stopped mattering once you left it, and that wasn’tnottrue, exactly, but given how much time he spent having conversations like this it felt a little disingenuous.)“What,” Rafa had protested, “I wasn’t —”“Seriously, he’s a good dude and I already have to deal with the wreckage of your disastrous love life and your utter inability to separate work from personal —”“Well, that seems excessive —”“Pippa,” Anthony said, straight-faced, and Rafa quailed (there was a slim possibility that he may have, slightly, somewhat mishandled the Pippa situation).





	find shelter somewhere in me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LaLupa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaLupa/gifts).



 

 

 

Thursday, and it felt like it: the weekend within arm’s reach, that home-stretch fatigue settling in. There had been half a cake in the staff room that morning (he’d long since learned to stop questioning how there always seemed to be cake in the staff room); it was by far the highlight of his week, which was depressing. In any case, he’d had a slice in place of lunch and was just now remembering, in that weird dead space between late afternoon and early evening, and took this as the justification it was to just go home. He was hungry, and tired, and while he had tests to finish grading (was already late handing them back), the prospect of sifting through another round of answers on the symbolism in _To Kill a Mockingbird_ was infinitely less inviting than the prospect of ordering pizza and falling asleep in front of Jeopardy later.

His phone startled him then, harsh in the silence, buzzed across the desk. A text from Daveed: _you still here?_

_yeah_

_I’m heading out in 5, want a lift?_

He sent back the prayer hands emoji, stood and stretched. Rubbed ineffectually at his neck, stiff and aching. Told himself not to be a fucking idiot — a lift. Of course. What had he been expecting? Went to find Daveed, in his little office across from the auditorium.

The drive was quiet and awkward (and mercifully short). Awkward for Rafa, anyway; it was like Daveed had forgotten the last couple of weeks, the weirdness hanging around between them that had definitely been there that morning. Or he was just being fucking nice and Rafa was being an idiot. That was equally likely.

He shook it off. Picked up his mail, called for pizza and wings, fed the cat. Dozed off on the couch for an hour or two before he finally dragged himself to bed; went to sleep and didn’t dream.

 

*

 

“Don’t fuck him,” had been Anthony's exact words, when Daveed had first shown up and Rafa asked about him (innocently enough, he’d thought).

(That was the thing, about teaching high school, the fucking gossiping. He assured every class of anxious, overwrought kids til he was blue in the face that this place stopped mattering once you left it, and that wasn’t _not_ true, exactly, but given how much time he spent having conversations like this it felt a little disingenuous.)

“What,” Rafa had protested, “I wasn’t —”

“Seriously, he’s a good dude and I already have to deal with the wreckage of your disastrous love life and your utter inability to separate work from personal —”

“Well, that seems excessive —”

“Pippa,” Anthony said, straight-faced, and Rafa quailed (there was a slim possibility that he may have, slightly, somewhat mishandled the Pippa situation). “She has told me _things,_ Casal, things I never should have had to hear and I am _delicate_ —”

“Alright, alright,” he interrupted, wincing. “Damn. Put down the stick and step away from the horse, would you.”

“So just — do me a solid and don’t fuck my friend. We’ll all be happier.”

Rafa had made a noise that anyone who didn’t know him would have interpreted as agreement; Anthony had not been fooled. He’d looked resigned and then just given up, which struck Rafa as a touch dramatic.)

 

*

 

A few weeks previously, not long after Daveed had shown up: there’d been a karaoke bar, shots, Anthony’s voice in his head going _don’t fuck my friend_ and an offer, declined. Gently, politely, but still declined.

So Rafa was feeling awkward now and Daveed appeared not to be and that was that. So. It was fine, all fine. Rafa walked to work once trying to tempt fate, coax out another late-afternoon text — it didn’t come, and he felt stupid, which he probably deserved.

They had conversations and lunches and it was _fine_ , definitively so. Didn’t run out of things to talk about, books and music and whatever else. Daveed seemed to carefully steer clear of talking about work a lot of the time; he’d listen while everyone else did and laugh at their jokes but stop short of offering his own stories, sidestep getting pulled into the endless bitch session. Pippa suggested once that he just had the world’s most angelic bunch of kids to teach, or boring — but that hadn’t been true of Lin before him or of any drama department kid Rafa had ever met, so he was skeptical. Daveed only shrugged, said, “What, your kids aren’t?” The picture of innocence.

The look on Pippa’s face conveyed exactly what she thought of that question; Rafa tried not to snort into his coffee.

 

*

 

“I found this at my place,” Pippa told him once, and handed him a t-shirt he’d forgotten about, thought he’d lost. “Sorry, I didn’t realize I had it.” It sounded rehearsed.

“You didn’t burn it?” Rafa asked, and he was joking but it didn’t land.

“Uh, no,” she said, “I didn’t, evidently.” She was far too polite to make a snide comment but it hung in the air, the space where one might have gone.

“Thanks,” he said, cleared his throat. She’d folded the shirt and everything; he caught a whiff of laundry soap on it too, the crunchy natural stuff she liked. Too nice a treatment for the decade-old cotton tee, the cover of _Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand_ printed on it faded almost to nothing. He was twisting it nervously in his hands; felt like a brand, a neon sign broadcasting what had happened, painfully obvious even from a distance.

“You’re welcome,” she said, and returned to carefully ignoring him.

 

*

 

“You’re just lucky it’s not a musical year, dude,” Rafa was saying, “‘cause theatre kids are scary to begin with, but musical theatre kids are straight-up terrifying. Horse head in your bed, terrifying.”

“I know musical theatre kids,” Daveed pointed out. “They’re not that bad. They’re just enthusiastic. And it’s not their fault Lin picked such a shitty time to leave, I feel badly —”

“Adverb.”

“Bad, then. Shut up, Perry,” Daveed said, but he was grinning. “You actually do that, like, in real life? Correct people’s grammar?”

“English teacher, Harry,” Rafa said and Daveed laughed. “ _Anyway,_ you have the right idea, is what I’m saying. Remind me to move partway through the semester before I ever decide to do another fuckin’ speech competition.”

“Yup,” Daveed said, dry. “That was why I moved across the country, fewer work obligations. It’s an airtight plan. Definitely recommend it.”

One of his kids had brought it to him, this city-wide competition, and something had possessed him to agree to it, and now he was preparing a dozen precocious teenagers to give speeches in front of a crowd. And he was bitching now — it wasn’t all bad; it wasn’t like the kind of sixteen-year-old who voluntarily took part in competitive public speaking was so hard to handle. So far the worst part had been talking them out of panic attacks, which was kind of already just part of his job description.

Silence fell; this happened, sometimes. They’d talk and talk and then — not run out of steam, exactly, but settle. Rafa was learning to be okay with it, that Daveed was just comfortable with quiet in a way he himself had never quite managed to be. They were pulling up to his building now, anyway. “Thanks,” he said, like he did every time.

Daveed nodded, like he did every time, said, “No problem. Night.”

Later, Rafa would convince himself that there was some shift, change in the air, unspoken thing that made him do it. Maybe it was just him feeling thrown off after talking to Pippa, or the way Daveed looked in the late-afternoon sun, the way he drummed idly on the steering wheel at stoplights.

Now, though — he leaned across the center console and kissed Daveed, and the earth didn’t move. Just the low rumble of the car running, breeze in the trees. Daveed’s hand came to rest on his knee, smallest intake of breath when Rafa sucked carefully on his lower lip. Wasn’t backing off but hadn’t met him halfway and, okay, Rafa could take a hint, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

“Um,” Daveed said, drew it out a little, what might have been amusement colouring it. “G’night, then.”

Fuck, fuck, fucking fuck, what the _fuck,_ Casal. “Night,” he repeated, and got out the car.

He couldn’t shake it off for the rest of the evening, through dinner and dishes and cleaning the bathroom and an unnecessarily long shower. Anxiety treated him to that ten seconds on a loop, in excruciating detail. _You should’ve at least apologized. Stupid, even for you._

 

*

 

The following morning was that rare one on which he managed to wake up and get going on the first attempt instead of hitting snooze twenty times. He had time even to drop in to his usual spot for coffee, near the school, and picked up a second americano for Daveed, a “sorry for unexpectedly kissing you” gesture. Daveed accepted it gratefully and didn’t say anything about the previous night; once again it didn’t seem to be bothering him. It  _was_ really good coffee.

 

*

 

Rafa kept walking to work — and his motives might once have been shallow, but as spring soldiered on he could admit to himself he actually kind of liked the long silences, the steady and unacknowledged back-and-forth of coffee and stupid texts, small gestures. He had a selfish little glimmer of hope that’d pop up sometimes, a songbird in his chest, whenever their fingers brushed or Daveed did that fucking shy look-away-and-smile thing — but he forced it back down, cupped his hands around it and muffled its singing. This was more than enough, surely, more than he deserved.

Midterms came and went, a spate of parent meetings, speech prep; they were on to rehearsing properly now, final edits, timing. He was weirdly fond of the group that had collected, the dozen or so kids who’d shown interest: a couple of keeners looking for another extracurricular to cram onto their college apps, three or four who’d signed up out of boredom or curiosity or both, another few he’d never heard say a word otherwise.

(All his Breakfast Club jokes went unappreciated. Kids these days.)

 

*

 

He and Daveed split a cab home from the bar one night (they’d gone out a few times, just the two of them or in groups, for karaoke, drinks on Friday nights; nobody made any awkward advances and it was fine. If Anthony caught his eye now and again to give him Looks, well). Neither had drunk much; there was some flu or something going around and the whole night had been a little subdued, quiet.

Daveed got dropped off first; Rafa was in the middle of trying to figure out how best to split the fare when Daveed said his name. Tilted his chin up and kissed him.

Rafa was surprised into stillness for a moment — and then the songbird woke up, poked its head out between his ribs, shocked him into moving. Hand on the back of Daveed’s neck to stop him moving away, not that he seemed to want to do that. He had the ridiculous thought that this was a textbook perfect first kiss — real one, not a hit-and-run — a little tentative, sweet and utterly satisfying. Like something falling into place.

The cab driver cleared her throat, pointedly, and Daveed was laughing as he pulled back, mumbled an apology. Rafa was sure he was blushing, felt like he was. Couldn’t make his brain work right; Daveed ended up just paying for the ride rather than wait for him to come back to earth. Watched the cab drive away.

 

*

 

Rafa couldn’t figure it out, what was different about that night, that time. What had he done, if anything — had Daveed been giving him signals or something, and he’d just missed them?

Didn’t matter, he decided eventually. He wasn’t about to push his luck, because it kept happening: Daveed kissed back, now. Wouldn’t kiss first but he did kiss back. Rafa lost time, just making out in his car; he made an _X-Files_ reference once, kind of punch-drunk, and Daveed laughed at him. They didn’t really talk about it, this slow-burn exploratory thing that was somehow better than ninety percent of the sex he’d ever had even though things never ventured below the waist. The fact that Rafa didn’t want to push it didn’t preclude jerking off in the shower afterward, one or ten times.

 

*

 

When he said the words “poetry reading” he was half-expecting to get laughed out of the car, or at least politely turned down. Daveed did give him a look and repeated “poetry reading” in that tone that always caught Rafa off his guard, like he was this close to giving him shit, but then he said, “Yeah, okay.” Smile wide enough to bring out the laugh lines around his eyes.

He let Rafa kiss him as usual, which escalated, like it did sometimes, car turned off and slow wash of heat all the way down to his toes. Daveed had one hand on his neck, little finger just brushing under the edge of his shirt; it was kind of driving him crazy, which was probably why some spirit was taking over his body and he was asking before he could think not to: “You wanna come up?”

Daveed at least appeared to think about it, hummed kind of into his mouth and drew back. “Not tonight,” he said, carefully. That self-conscious air that came up from time to time; the vulnerability of an offer extended and declined. Almost apologetic.

“Alright,” Rafa said, and when Daveed looked like he was going to explain, “look, don’t worry about it —”

“No, no, just... ” Daveed gave himself a shake and chewed on it for a second. “I’m just tryna get my head on straight, is all. I just moved here, you know, like — let me get my feet under me for a minute.”

“Mixing metaphors,” Rafa pointed out, and out came the laugh lines again and yup, he was fucked.

Daveed hadn’t lifted his hand from Rafa’s neck, fingertips light, almost tickling. “Man, fuck off. That make any sense to you?”

“Sure. It’s not me, it’s you.”

“Exactly.”

 

 

Examining himself critically in the bathroom mirror later had him feeling distinctly adolescent: mouth tender, almost bruised; reddish mark from Daveed’s teeth coming up on the side of his neck. The memory of a hand fisted in the front of his shirt. The cat wandered in, meowed up at him, plaintive. “Same,” he told her.

 

*

 

Hell of a turnout for this reading, better than usual. Standing room only by the time he got there, found Daveed in one of the rows of folding chairs near the back, bottles of water for them both.

“You might have mentioned,” Daveed said in his ear; their knees were touching. Waved the flyer he’d been handed at the door: _tonight’s featured poet, Rafael Casal._

Rafa shook it off, the residual weirdness that still made itself known at seeing his name in print like that. “Trying to keep you on your toes,” he said and Daveed rolled his eyes.

Eight o’clock on the dot Utkarsh took to the low stage as usual to give them the spiel. “Ladies and gentlemen, Caucasian and melanin — welcome once again. I may have snuck a look at this here list, and I see a number of new faces here tonight — so nobody tell ‘em about the part where we all point and throw rocks, yeah? Let’s keep things exciting, you know, keep it sexy.” Wolf-whistle from somewhere off to the side. “My mom’s here,” Utkarsh deadpanned. “Aaaanyway. Once we’ve finished the ritual sacrifice, by which I mean open mic, our feature on this fine evening is your friend and mine, Rafael Casal, Esquire —” Scattered applause. “— and he’s gonna blow your minds, get you all up in your feelings, so prepare accordingly.”

Rafa vaguely recognized the first few poets, by face if not name. After three or four that energy started to settle in proper, that camaraderie that came from cracking your heart open in front of a receptive audience. He was caught up, absorbed, and therefore pretty fucking surprised to hear Utkarsh say Daveed’s name. “What, seriously?” he whispered.

“Apparently,” Daveed muttered, looking a little stressed, and made his way up. “Been a while since I did this,” he admitted, conspiratorial, once he was in front of the mic. “Be gentle with me, now.” He let out a breath, not about to panic but clearly nervous.

“You got this, poet,” Rafa called, the usual rallying cry, and Daveed caught his eye as it went around the room a dozen-odd times, _you got this, you got this._

“Actually, if y’all could indulge me for a minute, there's a thing we do back home — can we just breathe, together, yeah? Breathe.” Collective inhale. “Let it out.” Exhale. “Breathe. Let it out.” He had his phone in hand to read from, glanced down at it. “I’m awkward by nature, not by choice — at times it feels dangerous to use my voice. In a roomful of strangers, speaking can feel poisonous. These lungs too collapsible…”

And he went on; a torrent, a deluge tripping off his tongue. Rafa had seen people do this a million times, the way their manner changed in front of a mic, even the most unassuming people could gain a confidence from those three minutes that vanished without a trace afterward. Daveed up there in his hoodie and not looking at his phone and pulling this out of his head, pulling the low murmur of appreciation from the assembled crowd, the crackle of snapped fingers, the odd quiet curse when a line hit home. A cathedral assembled in time to his own heartbeat and then, again, Daveed’s voice, steady: “Breathe. Let it out. Breathe. Let it out.”

A second or two of loaded silence before Utkarsh said, clear as day, “Mother _fucker._ ” The laugh rippled through the room as Daveed stepped down, made his way back.

“Holy shit, dude,” Rafa said as Daveed took his seat again, and Daveed rubbed at the back of his neck, looked away.

The next few poets were solid, nothing extraordinary, and then Utkarsh was saying his name. Clapped him on the back as he stepped up. Rafa took a beat to clear his head — that was the only thing he hated about doing this, filling up with other people’s words. Caught Daveed’s intent eyes toward the back and cleared his throat. “Let’s just love each other now, yeah? Before the tides pull, and the wind shifts — before we sober ourselves with our curfews and the mainland calls us home.” And all the static filtered out as he went on; letting what he’d just said fall out of his mind in favor of what was ahead of him, the sidewalk forming under his feet as he stepped forward. Daveed watching him.

 

“I have a car,” he admitted, later, mumbled into Daveed’s neck.

“What,” Daveed muttered, understandably nonplussed.

“I have a car,” he repeated, in a rush, “I started walking to work a while back when you started offering rides —”

“Oh my god,” Daveed said flatly. Unpeeled Rafa from his neck and dragged him up to kiss him again, properly, hard and smoldering. _Fuck_ his mouth, and Rafa’s too — couldn’t stop fucking running it. But his defenses were down and they were entangled in the driver’s seat pushed all the way back, pressed close; Daveed slipped a hand under his shirt and up his spine. Rafa didn’t know what it was about tonight — maybe just that, the reading making him feel like it always did, flayed raw, stupidly honest and itching —

Tiniest scrape of Daveed’s nails between his shoulderblades and Rafa _wanted,_ murmured, “Yeah, you can —” Daveed got it, pushed in a little and raked his nails down Rafa’s back not quite hard but firm and _fuck —_ sweet shock all the way down his spine. Gasped against Daveed’s mouth, sucked in the air they were sharing — “Come up,” he got out, around Daveed’s teeth in his lip. Came out muffled and for a second he wasn’t sure Daveed had even heard, but then he nudged Rafa back an inch.

“Don’t tempt me,” he said, but he was kind of smiling.

“No?” Rafa said, stupid, hazy with want.

“That is… a tempting offer,” Daveed admitted, laughed at himself; all self-conscious again, which would not stand. “I just don’t wanna do something I’m gonna regret.”

Ouch. “Uh. Right,” Rafa got out, halting. “Okay —”

“Such as,” Daveed rushed to clarify, wincing a little, “putting my fuckin’ foot in my mouth. See? I just mean — you remember what I said, about getting my feet under me…”

“Yeah,” Rafa said, softened a little, pushing down the kneejerk reaction, that adolescent hurt. Daveed’s hand still spread across the small of his back, skin to skin. “Yeah. I get it.”

“Gotta get ‘em out of my mouth first. _Then_ under me.” He smiled (those laugh lines creased a mile deep, yeah, Rafa was _thoroughly_ fucked), thumb gentle on Rafa’s lip, which was tingling, kind of. “Tempting offer, though.”

“Standing offer. Offer’s got its feet on the ground.”

“I could learn a thing or two.”

“Daveed.”

“Rafa.”

“The fuck are you talking about.”

Daveed tucked his face into the crook of Rafa’s shoulder and kind of laughed, kind of sighed, mumbled into his shirt. “I dunno. You broke me. I’m broken. Rendered incomprehensible by blind lust.”

Small but definite thrill up Rafa’s spine at that; goddamn, he was gonna get whiplash or something tonight. “I have that effect on people,” he said, trying not to grin like a fucking idiot and failing miserably; at least Daveed couldn’t see it. “Scientists are researching it.”

“Is that so. The Casal effect.”

“S'true.”

Some time later, he made it back up to his apartment. Couldn’t have said how; the time between the last (surprisingly sweet) kiss and falling into his bed was kind of a blur. Shucked his jeans off, a hand on himself in the half-dark. Daveed’s voice in his head _breathe breathe breathe_ and nails in his back, _Christ —_

Didn’t take more than a couple of minutes, his own hand just this side of rough, before he came, whiteout, static.

Breathe, Rafa, he thought, and laughed, out loud in the empty room. Heart hammering, still mostly dressed. God. Okay.

 

*

 

The weather the following Monday didn’t permit walking to work, or at least made it a pretty stupid decision. That would have been fine, if his car hadn’t decided to give up the proverbial ghost, but it had. And he was already late, just the run from his building to the parking lot had left him soaked, and he hadn’t even had coffee yet, and. Feeling very much like the universe hated him, he called Daveed. “Uh, hey. Can you pick me up?” He must have sounded as pathetic as he felt, because Daveed showed up with coffee and egg sandwiches (Rafa held off on tearing into one long enough to say something stupid about ideal men, and caught him smiling).

After a long, tense conversation with a mechanic later that day, involving a lot of things he didn’t _really_ understand, it turned out he’d be car-less for a good week, which meant two at best. Daveed didn’t even blink when he said so, just offered to swing by same time tomorrow.

 

Not that Rafa had _complaints,_ necessarily, about this arrangement. It was just that his outlook — on life, in a broad sense — was predicated on balance (consequently, he spent a lot of time berating himself for being generally awful at maintaining it to his own satisfaction). So this arrangement made him itchy, like it was upsetting whatever delicate order they’d established here, tipped the scales on this unspoken back-and-forth thing they’d had going on for the last couple of months.

When the car was returned to him, good as new (and his wallet much lighter for it), he texted Daveed: _let me make you dinner_ _  
_ _seeing as you wouldn’t take gas money like a normal person_

_you’re on. man cannot live on breakfast blts alone_

_don’t get your hopes up too high, i can cook but i’m not gordon ramsay or whoever_

_you’re better looking. that sound you just heard is of my expectations lowering_

_smart man_

 

*

 

Daveed showed up Thursday evening with a six-pack of beer. He’d never actually set foot in Rafa’s apartment before, and it was a little weird to have him here now, in that “new person judging my space” kind of way. The cat wandered over to them on the couch to knock her head against his shin, purring.

“Ignore her, she’s an asshole.”

Daveed looked wounded on her behalf, reached to scratch her ears. “Rude. What’s her name?”

“Ansible, and she’s an asshole.”

“I get it, I get it,” Daveed said, looking thoughtful. Cooed at her as if to illustrate and she meowed back at him, contentedly. “That's a weird fucking name for a cat, my dude.”

“I was reading a lot of Le Guin when I got her, I guess?” he offered, and paused, considered how much to tell. “Well. Reading a lot, full stop. Didn’t have a job for the first seven or eight months I lived here.” Daveed asked with his expression, the obvious question. “It was kind of a spontaneous move, I was — needed a change of scenery.” It was the pat answer, and it was mostly true.

“From the Bay? Hell of a change.”

“No shit. Dunno if you’ve noticed, but my decision-making skills could use some work.” Daveed chuckled but didn’t belabor the point. “What about you, how’d you end up here?” He waved a hand but Rafa insisted. “Nah, come on. Can’t be that bad. I showed you mine, you show me yours.”

“It’s nothing interesting. Just… came here to be with someone, and it didn’t work out, that’s all. Couple years ago, this was.” He smiled, a little, didn’t sound bitter.

“Not to be a dick or whatever,” Rafa said, “but I’m kind of glad it didn’t.” Daveed looked like he didn’t quite know what to do with that; not that he was upset by it, exactly. He let Rafa put his feet in his lap, wrapped a hand around one of his ankles. God, his hands — Rafa was a gross, bad person, confirmed.

“So I met Anthony a while back, when I was subbing, and when he said his school was about to lose someone… well, here we are, I suppose.”

Lin had fucked off with basically no notice, gotten a real job, a writing gig. Network TV. Teaching had been a side hustle for the guy as long as Rafa had known him; he’d always had Big Ideas. They talked occasionally, since he’d left, and he seemed happy. Rafa was happy for him, even if it felt weirdly like watching your ex be the one to come off better from the breakup. “I thought the kids were gonna stage a revolt when he left, I’m not gonna lie.”

“I heard rumblings, yeah — golden boy, tough act to follow, all that.” He laughed. “S’alright, though. Kids seem to like me at least as much as I like them. They’re not openly rioting, or anything, anyway. So.”

“You can write, dude,” Rafa pointed out, as if that made sense as a followup.

Daveed cocked his head a little, not getting it, said, “So can you.”

“I mean — really. How’d you even end up teaching?” He hadn’t stopped thinking about that piece for weeks, or Daveed’s delivery of it; how the slouch, the mellow demeanor, didn’t at all prepare you for the hurricane. Every word discrete and precise and they’d soaked into his skin and stayed there. _Your scars are beauty marks, don’t let ‘em define you. Breathe._

“I didn’t just fall into it. Wild, I know, but some of us chose this, like, on purpose.”

“Wow. Uh, okay. Drag me, I guess.”

“Shit.” Daveed winced. “Sorry, that’s not — I didn’t mean for that to sound so…”

He was right, though. “It’s fine,” Rafa told him, tried to laugh it off; it did sting a little. He reached for the ashtray on the coffee table, hoping to paper over the sudden awkwardness. Goddamnit, they were past this, he’d thought. “Dessert?” he said. Eyebrows. Offered Daveed the joint he hadn’t finished yesterday, fished a lighter from his pocket.

“What would the kids say, Mr. Casal,” Daveed said, dry, but he accepted.

“None of ‘em would be surprised." Which was true. He often had the impression that his kids didn’t quite think of him as the authority figure he was supposed to be — which was his own fault, in part at least; it was what he got for having visible tattoos and not yelling at the ones he caught smoking in the parking lot. Didn’t really help his inability to think of himself as a Real Adult most of the time, like he was just a tall kid with credit card debt and a driver’s license, but.

Daveed beckoned him forward to bring their mouths together and pass him the toke, fingertips light on his jaw. This progressed, after a time, in the usual fashion; Rafa pressed him down into the couch and kissed him. Getting to stretch out was entirely new and he wasn’t mad about it, lying around somewhere comfortable, without the interference of seatbelts or a steering wheel in his back.

The evening passed in fits and starts, lost time. Nothing of the usual feeling of waiting for things to escalate, the idea that making out like this was just a prelude. Maybe it was just the weed but he could have kissed Daveed for ages, years; until God saw fit to send another flood, until the nuclear apocalypse hit and they’d be doing it in a bunker, surviving on canned goods and Twinkies.

It was a school night, though, and real life beckoned. Real life didn’t give a shit about his apocalypse contingencies. “I should go,” Daveed muttered, sometime around ten, and made no move to get up.

“Probably,” Rafa agreed and knuckled his chin. Daveed made as if to chomp at his fingers, which was so rudely cute Rafa was almost angry. “You good to drive?”

“Fine.” He looked almost amused. Took an effort to get himself off the couch, Rafa was silently pleased to note. In fact he got halfway to the door and came back, leaned over the couch arm to kiss him one more time, Spiderman-style. “Night, Scully.”

“Mm. Night,” Rafa murmured, hazy, and then sat up. “Wait, hold up — you’re Mulder?”

“Aliens took my sister,” Daveed said, deadpan, and he was gone.

 

*

 

Crunch time, now, the days slipping by faster than he knew what to do with. Prom coming up (which he’d been volun-told to chaperone, and he wasn’t about to fuck with Renee on this one), finals after that, and graduation. And underpinning it all was Daveed, who’d begun to look as tired as Rafa usually did.

A week now until the speech competition, too. He’d weathered one panic attack in rehearsal already this week; had to talk someone else out of scrapping and rewriting her entire piece at the last minute. So, about what he might have expected.  

He kind of unloaded on Daveed on the way home once, who listened patiently to his tirade until Rafa ran out of steam, sighed and sat back. Far from getting it all off his chest he felt infinitely worse, marinating in it and just ready for the week to be over with.

“If you’re —” Daveed started, and stopped himself.

“What?”

Daveed shook his head. “Nah, forget it. I shouldn’t — never mind.”

Wary. “No, what?”

“I just think… if you’re so unhappy,” he said, and trailed off meaningfully.

“I’m not _so unhappy.”_ Kneejerk. “It’s been a shitty week, I’m just bitching —”

“See, this is why I said forget about it —”

“If you wanna jump right to hey, Rafa, quit your job —”

“That’s not actually what I said,” Daveed pointed out, patiently, “and just — look. When was the last time you had a not-shitty week?” The question knocked him off-kilter, and while he cast back for an answer that wasn’t total bullshit Daveed went on, still carefully. Trying not to piss him off, which was kind of infuriating. “I’m just saying I know burnout when I see it. It’s not good for you and it’s not fair to your fuckin’ kids. They can tell when you don’t wanna be there.”

“Okay, okay. Shit, sorry I asked. Any other wisdom to impart, while you’re being condescending as fuck?”

“Rafa,” Daveed said, like, _come on._  Came to a stop in front of his building like usual. Turned the car off and it was probably just a reflex but something about it got Rafa’s back up.

“You’re not exactly in a position to be giving advice,” he muttered, bordering on petulant, and it sat awkwardly in the silence between them.

Daveed looked like he was bracing himself as he said, “How’s that?”

“It’s not like you have your shit so together,” he said, and crashed onward like he could ignore the wounded look that flashed across Daveed’s face in a second. “You keep everybody at arm’s length, you — what, you don’t think so?” This over a half-hearted noise of protest. “All this — I’ve been the one reaching, Daveed, this whole fucking time.” It was stupidly honest, once again putting himself in the vulnerable position; might as well have cracked his chest and handed Daveed its contents. “I dunno what you’re waiting for, if you’re just running scared or what — and I get that, okay, I do, but. Fuck. I’m tired, man.”

“I told you — months ago,” Daveed said, halting.

“You said to give you time, and I’ve done that —”

“So, what, Rafa?” That was surprisingly bitter. “Been long enough? You waiting for me to reward your patience?”

Rafa’s heart wanted to wilt at the thought, at how nakedly hurt Daveed looked — and fuck his stupid mouth because that wasn’t it, or not the whole of it — but there wasn’t room for it under the frustration, the resignation at fucking up as usual. He never could say the right thing and now he’d finally truly upset the fragile order of things. “That’s not what I meant. You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Do I?” Daveed muttered, and the silence stretched on heavy for a moment while Rafa scrambled for it, cast around for the thing that would fix it, the neat and tidy explanation that would right the scales, make him understand. Daveed said, quietly, “Get out of the car.”

Rafa got out of the car.

 

*

 

The Saturday morning of the speech competition dawned bright and sunny. He met his group early, clutching Starbucks and blinking sleep from their eyes, and they headed out. The thing was being held at another high school across town, and that woke them up: the auditorium was twice the size of theirs, and not full, but would definitely be a far cry from the way they'd been rehearsing for the last couple of months. Anxiety thrumming through the group while they signed in and the ones who weren't catatonic wheeled on him, looking betrayed.

“What the fuck.” This from Megan, who was fierce and tiny, very much a high-strung go-getter type. He'd never heard her curse before and it was kind of funny but he knew better than to laugh.

“Language,” he said instead, weak and reflexive.

“There are _so many people here,_ ” she hissed, and that set off the rest of them, a tangle of worried questions and commentary, when were they going on, were they staying the whole day, was it too late to back out.

“Guys, come on,” he said, and waved them quiet. He'd never really gotten the hang of the inspirational speeches, the You're All So Full Of Potential, Shoot For The Stars thing that Lin or Pippa had (or Daveed, he thought with a pang). First time for everything. “Look. We're up first, so the worst’ll be over quick. And we are staying for the duration —” Had to raise his voice a little to compete with the chorus of sighs, protests. “Because it's _polite._ Get comfy. And, okay,” and he went a little conspiratorial, took a step closer. “I'm not _really_ supposed to tell you this, but the scores do not matter. Like, I'm pretty sure first prize is a Steak n’ Shake gift certificate.The whole point is the speeches, and you all put the work in, so you're golden. Fuck the points.”

“Language,” Megan said, and that broke the tension; they all laughed.

“Seriously, you guys. You're gonna crush it. Don't let the space trip you up, don't rush, just breathe.”

He hung in the back to watch, in the half-dark. His hunch had been right: the unfamiliar setting threw them off some, there were a few missteps, but they were doing just fine. Megan’s speech had been retooled at the last minute to include a story about her grandmother that Rafa was surprised to find got him in the chest; Josh who seemed to communicate solely via grunts had some pretty insightful shit to say about gentrification and the house he’d grown up in. Every one of them funny and fiercely genuine in the way only teenagers were capable of being.

He might have, if pressed, even admitted he was proud.

 

*

 

He ran into Pippa once, at his usual coffee spot. Students tended to bypass it in favor of one of a few Starbucks nearby, so it was pretty dead during the after-school hours as a rule. Not today, though; at least a dozen people ahead of them in line for some goddamn reason. “Fancy meeting you here, on your own,” she said, pleasantly enough. He hesitated for a second, unsure what that meant, and she explained, “Without Daveed, I mean. Aren’t you usually, you know.” Gestured vaguely.

“Not so much lately,” he said, too tired to feign ignorance. She hmmed and a moment passed, probably felt longer than it was. God, this line was so _fucking_ long. Why. It bubbled up in him, suddenly, unbidden: “Sorry.” She looked confused (understandably) and he went on: “I didn’t exactly… do right by you, and I guess I should’ve said so before now. But. Better late than never, right.”

“I appreciate that,” she said, soft, a little amused. It wasn’t like they’d been super serious — they’d had a fun six weeks or so and some admittedly pretty fucking great sex before he’d gotten claustrophobic and unceremoniously cut and run — but still. He’d been needing to say it and not just to clear his conscience; actually meant it.

“So — I just — yeah. Wanted to say that. Sorry.”

“You’ve said it,” she pointed out, not mean, and he laughed, self-consciously. Another moment. “Don’t put so much pressure on yourself, Rafael.”

“Uh. How’s that?”

“It’s like,” and she exhaled, “you think other people want you to be different than you are. Better, or something. But it’s just you. Don’t beat yourself up so much, just because you’re not the version of yourself you think you should be.”

Well, that was a bit of a drive-by. “Okay,” he said, for want of something else to say. Quiet again, all the way up to the counter, and they paid separately and left together. Out on the sidewalk again he ventured, “Do you want to have a drink sometime?”

“Neither one of us wants that,” she said, but she was smiling.

“As friends, then.”

“Friends, sure.” She went up on her toes to kiss his cheek, waved and went on her way.

 

*

 

Rafa hauled out his writing again, unearthed from a drawer what had once wanted to be a novel, in an old stack of battered notebooks. He told himself it was to fill the space that had up til now been occupied by speech prep — for lack of something else to do, which was hilariously untrue but made him feel better. Pushing past the initial cringe was hard enough that he almost gave up; all he could see were the reasons he’d put it down in the first place. And a lot of it did strike him now as cringey, precious bullshit, but — the bones were there. He could pare it back, cut it down into something workable. Stubbornly refused to be paralyzed by the sight of a blank page.

 

*

 

The week leading up to prom was a lost cause: no chance of getting anything productive done; even the kids who weren’t going couldn’t stop fucking talking about it. He wasn’t the only one who caved and played movies in class, he knew for a fact.

He and Daveed hadn’t quite been avoiding each other. The night of the Incident he’d just gotten obscenely stoned and stewed in it for a while, let himself feel every shitty selfish thing he was feeling: that he was exhausted and stressed and forever taking on more than he could handle and Daveed hadn’t fucked him and, and, and. He’d tired himself out, wrung himself dry of all of it, didn’t have the energy to keep carrying it all around. It was weirdly liberating. So they hadn’t spoken, exactly, but they still had to see each other, so they were cordial, like they’d been when they’d first met (not actually all that long ago). Daveed treating him no differently than Javi or Karen or any of the other faculty he was friendly-but-not-friends with, and it sucked, but it made sense.

 

*

 

Prom night. He dug his one nice suit out of the closet and steeled himself for the usual, but worse, because there’d be tulle and illegal alcohol consumption involved.

He wallflowered some, as much as was possible, Pepsi in hand. Generic banquet hall strung with twinkle lights, votive candles, glitter; a sea of girls a little wobbly on high heels and boys in off-the-rack suits too broad across the shoulders. It’d taken him twenty minutes to realize that the annoyingly long extended remix of whatever was playing was actually a string of four or five indistinguishable pop songs and he felt very, very old, at which point he’d stepped into the foyer to breathe and be crushingly depressed for a minute.

“My prom was nothing like this,” Pippa said, which was exactly what he’d just been thinking. “Is it just me or can you not at all tell who’s sixteen and who’s twenty-six anymore?”

“Right?” he said, weirdly relieved. “I definitely thought I was alone on this one.”

“I blame Kim Kardashian,” she said darkly, and he laughed. “How do all teenage girls instinctively know how to contour, all of a sudden? Like, no, fuck your false eyelashes, go through the awkward blue eyeshadow phase like the rest of us. God. It’s so surreal.”

“Oh, I bet you were cute, back then.”

“I was _not,_ I dressed like Annie Hall —”

“Please. Are there photos?”

“I’d like to know that myself, actually,” Daveed put in, dry, having appeared out of nowhere. Rafa’s chest tightened momentarily and he willed his lungs to work.

“No comment,” she said. Trying not to smile.

“So they’re _incredibly_ embarrassing, got it.” He nudged her, an elbow in the ribs. “Good to know. I’m not gonna let this go now.”

“Of course they’re embarrassing, what part of ‘dressed like Annie Hall’ — oh, shit.” She craned to look over Daveed’s shoulder, frowning. They all turned to watch a girl Rafa vaguely recognized come stumbling out of the bathroom across the foyer, shoes in hand; he could smell the green apple Smirnoff from here. “Duty calls,” Pippa sighed, and went to go deal with whatever that was.

“You want a hand?” Rafa asked but she waved him off.

“Rather shepherd a wayward drunk girl than stand next to me for thirty seconds, huh?” Daveed was almost smiling.

“Yeah, well.” Rafa rubbed at the back of his neck, determinedly looking anywhere but directly at Daveed. It’d be like looking at the sun, probably, the sight of him in a suit.

“I don’t wanna keep doing this.” That was quiet; Rafa almost didn’t hear him over the music coming through the wall. “Keep dancing around each other. Like we didn’t — like nothing ever happened.”

“I don’t, either,” Rafa admitted, and the songbird in his chest shook itself awake. He didn’t know what he was trying to say. “Whatever — we, this, it can be whatever you want, I just don’t — can’t —”

“I want,” Daveed started and Rafa turned to look at him properly — and they were interrupted by the door opening, burst of light and bass-heavy music, and a group of giggling, slightly disheveled teenagers came spilling out. Headed for the parking lot to go smoke, no doubt; Daveed waited until they were well out of earshot before he continued. Nervous, fidgeting with his cuffs. “I wanna take you home,” he said.

When his brain was working semi-normally again, kicked itself back into gear after that statement, Rafa said, “Why the _fuck_ would you tell me this _now._ ” He watched Daveed’s face flicker through a series of expressions that would probably have been funny otherwise before he realized what that sounded like. “God — I mean — it’s like, another hour before we can get the hell out of here.”

“True.” Daveed cleared his throat, blinked. “Okay, my timing needs work. Duly noted.” He gave himself a shake, darted a quick glance around their general vicinity, and then leaned in and kissed Rafa too briefly. Hand on his jaw. And then it was over and he stepped back. Tipped his head toward the door. “Unto the breach.”

Time stopped, Rafa was sure of it. Single longest hour of his life. Between a (small, tiny, minute) fire thanks to one of the votive candles and the burgeoning fight that needed breaking up he kept busy, but he was thrumming and distantly impressed he even managed to stay upright.

He ran into Megan at one point, literally — nearly crashed into her coming out of the bathroom. They were both unscathed, though, and he went to move past her but she said, “Hey, Mr. Casal?” So he turned back, dimly worried to see she looked hesitant. He almost hadn’t recognized her for a second, between the hair and the makeup and the dress. “I just wanna say — thanks. For the speech thing. It was good, I thought.”

He was surprised, to say the least. “It went really well,” he agreed, “and you’re welcome.” She smiled and then she was hugging him, suddenly, hard enough to knock him back a step. He didn’t really have a chance to react before she let him go, and went back inside. Well, okay.

Finally, _finally,_ the night wound down. He watched the last kids file out, tried his damnedest to make normal human conversation with some parents in the parking lot, and eventually he caught up with Daveed on the front steps, silhouetted in the light pouring from the open door.

“I came with Anthony,” he said.

“I've got my car,” Rafa said, “you looking for a ride?”

They were both quiet on the drive, save for Daveed pointing out that his place was closer. Twenty interminable minutes of silently cursing traffic and every god Rafa could think of and they pulled into the driveway, porch light on and the house beyond it dark and still.

Took two tries to get his key in the lock. Flipped the kitchen light on to leave Rafa blinking in the sudden bright flood and he found himself up against the door, his back pushing it shut. Daveed penning him in, arms on either side of him. “Hi,” he said, ridiculously.

“Hi,” Daveed murmured. In the heavy, loaded few seconds before the kiss, all body heat and anticipation, Rafa was expecting it to be sweet, tentative, conciliatory even, having been weeks without.

He was wrong. It'd been weeks without and Daveed kissed him hard and starving like he could make up for it now. Hands on either side of his face, and Rafa damn near melted, knees weak. Let Daveed hold him up, push him up against the wood and kiss him breathless. Slid both hands under Daveed’s jacket to clutch at his back and Daveed moved down to his neck, teeth, tongue, frustrated sound at the obstacle presented by his collared shirt and tie. Rafa tugged him forward, closer, made shameless by the promise of a lean warm body crashing into his. He’d never felt like this in his life, so thoroughly disoriented to _want_ another person and he kept thinking any second now, okay, they'd take a second to slow down, regroup, get their bearings, and it kept not happening (he also kept thinking Anthony was going to be _insufferable_ about this). “Bed,” he gasped and Daveed laughed, wrapped the end of Rafa’s tie around his hand and pulled him forward. Stumbling, they couldn't really handle walking _and_ kissing _and_ trying to undress each other at the same time but that wouldn't stop him trying. Both of their jackets hit the floor in the hall, shoes. Got there eventually, fell half-dressed into bed. “Hate that this took us so fucking long,” Rafa confessed, stupid, “fuck, Daveed, if you had any idea —”

Daveed cut him off, said, “Don’t,” firmly, kissed him hard as if to punctuate; Rafa was happy to concede. Daveed crawled over him and pressed him down into the mattress, caught Rafa’s wrists in his hands and his sigh with a kiss. “That,” he murmured, like a statement, the grin on his face absolutely feral and Rafa couldn’t reconcile this Daveed with the one from two months ago. “That. I'm going to abuse that at a later date.”

“I look forward to it,” Rafa said because really, what the fuck. Daveed laughed and kissed him, kissed him. They wrestled out of their remaining clothes; normally he’d have liked to savor the reveal just a little more but every bit of skin uncovered only served to stoke his hunger and he didn't know how that was even _possible_ and he was terrified of it, of wanting Daveed even more than he already did, than he had wanted —

“What do you want?” Daveed asked and his hands were everywhere, not stilling, palms warm on Rafa’s chest, hips. Fuck, but he was beautiful. Rafa almost couldn't parse the question but he managed to get his head around it long enough to tell him _fuck me, want you to fuck me,_ and Daveed muttered “you’re too much” into the crook of his neck.

The lube was organic, vegan, strawberry kiwi-flavoured, because of course it was. Too much of it, spilled across the sheets. Daveed’s fingers slick and gleaming in the low light and his cock too, wet at the tip, stood up dark and pretty against his belly. Rafa resolved silently that he was not getting the fuck out this bed before he got his mouth on it, come hell or high water.

Daveed went slow, now — not to tease, just exquisitely careful. Stark contrast to where they’d been just a few minutes before; Rafa couldn’t have gotten his footing if he’d tried. Probably could have died right there, stayed right where he was — Daveed driving him out of his mind on two fingers and then three and murmuring nonsense, _relax, breathe_ — and then he curved up and Rafa fucking choked. “Okay?”

“Come on,” Rafa got out, instead of something insane like _please_ or _why the fuck haven't we been doing this forever._ Wild edge to Daveed’s laugh; he kissed the side of Rafa’s knee and eased out, gently.

He tore open the condom packet with his teeth and grimaced at the taste, looked so put out and betrayed that Rafa burst out laughing, couldn't help it. No reason that should have been so fucking cute. “ _Very_ smooth.”

“Smooth is my middle name,” Daveed said, trying for serious and failing miserably. Leaned over to kiss Rafa again though they were both grinning too widely to have much success.

That first breathless moment Daveed finally pushed into him and — oh, that wasn't funny at all. It'd been a while and it knocked him sideways, knocked the air from his chest. Body said _intrusion_ and stupid fucking lizard brain said _more_ and _now_ and voice met them in the middle, said _fuck,_ shaky exhale.

“Okay?” Daveed murmured, concerned now.

“Very much so,” he breathed and meant it. Daveed moved and everything shut up saying anything other than _yes, this, yes._ Faded into each other, Daveed on him, _in_ him, sweat and skin. Rafa caught a handful of lube-soaked sheet just to have something to hold onto, like he might drown otherwise, then thought better of it and held Daveed instead, clung, nails in his back. He’d never been much of a talker in bed but he was sure he couldn’t have strung a sentence together now if he’d tried, flooded, overwhelmed. Got a hand around his own cock, didn't bother trying to match his strokes to the roll of Daveed’s hips and caught himself on the knife's edge like that for what might have been ages, that sweet ache of not _quite_ there —

Daveed was talking enough for them both, he realized, had been: “You close, you gonna come?” He rasped a yes and Daveed kept going, _come on come on give it up_ — Rafa tried to kiss him, missed his mouth and came, hard. Daveed didn’t let up and it was so _much,_ raw, chasing it now. Caught his mouth, knocking teeth, and followed him over.

After a million years Daveed rolled off of him and they lay there while the sweat cooled. Come drying itchy on his chest; the heavy familiar scent of sex in the air.

After about another million years Daveed said, “You know, I went to your speech thing.”

“You… ?”

Daveed laid a hand across his chest, still panting, looked over at him. “Yeah, I — kind of lurked in the back. Coulda said something, I guess, I just — it was important to you, I didn’t wanna fuck it up for you, I didn’t —”

“Okay, I can’t possibly get it up again right now, so I’m gonna need you to stop talking.” _What the fuck_ written clear across Daveed’s face. “That’s the sexiest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” Rafa explained, grave.

“‘I kind of lurked in the back’? Well. Different strokes.” Laugh lines, that smile to outshine the sun.

Rafa turned over and dropped a kiss on his collarbone, and another, just to do it. Licked at his nipple so Daveed could get caught on his weirdness and laugh at it, not get self-conscious. Stayed there a minute while Daveed hmmed contentedly and arched a little into it. “While we’re confessing,” he muttered, rested his chin on Daveed’s chest.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

“I’m leaving.”

“Ten hail Marys.”

“What.”

“What — I dunno, I’m not Catholic, I don’t know the protocol. Fuck you mean, you’re leaving.”

“I quit my job. I’m going back home. To Oakland.”

“No shit.” Daveed’s eyebrows hit his hairline.

“No shit. I’m — you were right.”

“Mm. Say that again, slower.”

“I just… I came here in the first place ‘cause I was running from my shit, maybe that’s all I’m doing, but.” He sighed, blew a lock of hair out of his eyes. “I’m running on fumes, here. I started writing again, or trying to. If I fuck it up all over again I guess I’d rather be fucked up at home, out west. Dig?”

“I dig,” Daveed said, soft. “When do you go?”

“July third.”

“That soon, huh.”

“Why not, right?” A beat; he considered. “So… five weeks. Ish. What are the chances of a repeat performance, you think?”

“Excellent chances. And then…”

“And then.” He tried for light. “Grindr… I could find a knockoff you out in the Bay, probably.”

“Right.” Daveed nodded, the picture of solemnity. “I forgot, flights only go _into_ California, they don’t come back out. I hitchhiked to get here. Journeyed through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered…” The grin spread over Rafa’s face unchecked; he was _pretty_ sure what that implied, but wanted to hear him say it anyway. Daveed tugged Rafa’s hand from its idle trail over his chest and kissed his wrist. “Not to make this more than it is, or whatever… but I figure I gotta visit my parents sometime. Holidays, at least.”

“At least,” Rafa agreed.

 

The sun had risen, and started to set again, by the time he made it home. The shower worked out all his pleasant aches, spray stinging over the fledgling bruises on his chest, neck, thighs.

When he got out he saw he had a text from Daveed waiting. Read it, and stood there in his towel, dripping, grinning like an idiot. Ansible wound herself around his ankles, fur sticking to the wet skin.

_you were right about me, too. for the record._

The songbird ruffled its wings and settled down, content.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> title from "Riches & Wonders" by the Mountain Goats. the poem Rafa recites is called [Beaches](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1O3aZ3-Ncw); Daveed's is [Breathe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk3lKqUnTEo). also [here is a v quick version](http://djmattwerner.blogspot.ca/2016/02/daveed-diggs-interview.html) of the story of how Daveed ended up in FLS (and later Hamilton). 
> 
> this was written for the April round of [Fight Back Fic Auction](https://fightbackfic.tumblr.com/)! tell yr friends. 
> 
> thanks are due to digitalis for correcting that one dumb attempt at a Le Guin reference. bless.
> 
> you know where to find me.


End file.
